Praying is a conversation with God. When the conversation includes several other people, it’s even better. Praying together is better because others can join in agreement, God listens to those words more emphatically, in one sense. Praying together brings people relationally and spiritually closer. There are other benefits I think, even though I don’t have them at the top of my mind right now.

Something I’m learning and exploring is the lost art of written prayers, or in today’s time, typed out prayers. That’s what this blog is about, my prayer blogging. But there’s another way I’ve recently started praying, and that is to share a prayer that I’ve prayed through typing it out.

Making sense of prayer has taken me a long time. Many years. Like several decades. For those that are new readers to this blog post, I’m talking to God through my blogging and you’re getting to look over my shoulders. My hope is that my honest conversation will some of you to discover how you can enjoy talking with God more. And when you enjoy talking with God more, you’ll talk to God more often. That’s a good thing.

Oh God, I need a lot of help making sense of this world. Like I read in the Gospels, the writers often note when something is being translated. And, Jesus did that too, like the other day, when I read one of the parables, and how he said that he taught using stories and parables so that some people would hear and not understand. And, Jesus then took the time to translate and explain the parable to his disciples. The story I had read was that one about the parable of the seeds.

I’m under no delusion that this little blog project will turn into a best-selling book or some kind of movie project. That was certainly not my aspiration nor ambition. I’ve known people that go on the conference circuit and do the junket. No thank you, I’m not interested. That’s the not the game in life I want to play.

I’m part of a church that has multiple locations. Some of you may have heard of it: Saddleback Church. And this week, our entire church is going through the same sermon series, the same small group curriculum, the same daily devotional, and all of this on the topic of prayer. You can join in whether you’re part of this church or not, by going to saddleback.com/pray40; there’s an online campus where you can participate more actively with thousands of others too.

Talking to God about Others’ Hardships

Dear God, it is fairly easy to sing praise songs and to believe in your being a good God and a caring God and a providing God when life is going well. I thank you for giving me a pretty good life during the past 50 years.

I don’t know why there is so much suffering in this world. And why disasters and tragedies have struck recently so close to each other. It feel overwhelming and too much for us to take. When sufferings caused by losses and destructions of hurricanes, earthquakes, and massacre, on top of the smaller tragedies that happen in the normal course of life as some people experience bad accidents, death from old age or disease, crimes out of desperation, and all kinds of other things that make life hard.

Recently, I was going to the airport and the taxi driver shared his story with me. He emigrated from a Middle Eastern country and had a decent life growing up, even a wealthy life, by average standards. Owned like 30-some houses as rental properties and he lost it all from economic downturns. Now he’s driving a taxi cab. Oh that’s got to be a hard transition.